members in 1966 to 48,000 in 1974 (as cited in
Judith Papachristou’sWomen Together: A His-
tory of the Women’s Movement in the United
States).
While this political action was taking place
to improve the lot of women, feminist writers
were analyzing the psychological and sociologi-
cal bases of the new movement. As Judith Hole
and Ellen Levine state in their bookRebirth of
Feminism, there were two aspects to this process.
First, feminists had to counter the ‘‘biological
differences’’ argument: ‘‘The single most impor-
tant assumption of feminist analysis is that there
are no inherent emotional, intellectual, or psy-
chological differences between men and women.
All differences that are considered to be rooted
in ‘nature’ are...a reflection of socially-
imposed values.’’ The second aspect of the fem-
inist argument of the era was a ‘‘social critique’’
in which the differences between men’s and
women’s social values and institutions were
viewed as the result of ‘‘sex-role stereotyping.’’
Feminism in the Early 1970s
Although gains had been made, in 1970 women
still represented a substantially disadvantaged
portion of the population in terms of economic
opportunity. According to statistics issued by
the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department
of Labor in 1970, as cited inRebirth of Feminism,
women were significantly underrepresented in
the leading professions. Women made up only
9 percent of scientists, 7 percent of physicians, 3
percent of lawyers, and 1 percent of engineers
and federal judges. Starting salaries for college
graduates in every field from accounting to lib-
eral arts were considerably lower for women
than they were for men.
However, during the 1970s the women’s
movement continued to make a huge impact on
American culture and society. In 1972 the Equal
Rights Amendment (ERA) was passed by Con-
gress and sent to the states for ratification, a goal
of feminist activists for fifty years. (In 1982 the
ERA perished because it was not ratified by the
minimum thirty-eight states required under the
Constitution.) Also in 1972, Title IX of the Edu-
cation Amendments Act banned gender discrim-
ination in colleges and universities receiving
federal aid. The result was a dramatic increase
in the number of college sports programs avail-
able to women. A major landmark in the
achievement of feminist goals came in 1973,
when the Supreme Court ruled inRoe v. Wade
that a woman’s right to abortion was enshrined
in the Constitution because of inherent privacy
rights. Before this, abortion had been illegal in
many states.
During the early 1970s the new opportuni-
ties for women were reflected in an upsurge of
political participation. According to Chafe in
The Road to Equality, from 1972 to 1974 the
number of women candidates for state legisla-
tures increased by 300 percent; participation by
women in party political conventions also
showed dramatic increases.
Along with these social and political
changes, feminists set out to change the images
of women presented in the media that reinforced
the traditional notion that a woman’s place was
in the home. Feminists also mounted crusades
against pornography, which they believed
exploited women and contributed to sexual vio-
lence against women. The women’s movement
also opposed beauty pageants, arguing that such
contests treated women as sexualized objects
rather than as people.Critical Overview.
Since its publication in 1973, ‘‘Diving into the
Wreck’’ has been held in high esteem by scholars
of Rich’s poetry. The poem is considered central
to her life’s work as a whole. In an interpretation
of the poem inAdrienne Rich’s Poetry, Wendy
Martin comments that ‘‘the poet returns alone to
the sea, the origin of life, to explore ‘the wreck’ of
civilization in an effort to determine what went
wrong.’’ Once she arrives at the wreck, ‘‘she
accepts the wreck and learns what she can from
it as a necessary prelude to beginning again.’’
Erica Jong, in her essay in the same volume,
asserts that ‘‘the old myths of patriarchy...
that split male and female irreconcilably into
two warring factions’’ must yield to Rich’s
‘‘image of the androgyne’’ with ‘‘its idea that we
must write new myths, create new definitions of
humanity which will not glorify this angry chasm
but heal it.’’ Judith McDaniel, inReconstituting
the World: The Poetry and Vision of Adrienne
Rich, notes that the poem ‘‘is Rich’s most com-
plex use of an image of rebirth.’’ The wreck itself
is ‘‘the history of all women submerged in a
patriarchal culture; it is that source of myths
about male and female sexuality which shape
our lives and roles today.’’ McDaniel also notesDiving into the Wreck